Will you be getting Office for iPad?

So, it's finally happened. Microsoft Office is finally on the iPad after Microsoft formally introduced it at an event today. Office is one of those packages that some absolutely live in, and it's still one of the very best at what it does. As the iPad has grown in popularity over the years, Office has been noticably absent. But now that it's here, will you be getting it?

It's going to be extremely useful for some of us, less so for others and there'll be plenty of folks who just have no need for it at all. But it's a welcome addition to the iPad app portfolio, either way. So, what about you? Are you going to be getting Office for iPad? Drop a vote up top and sound off in the comments below!

Definitely yes. I've been waiting for this for a while. My boss is thankfully ditching iWork (which we've used for some time now) for Office. iWork and Google Docs are just too format incompatible for our needs. For example, my boss would send a document to a client who would open it in Office, then would complain to us for using it. This is so much better.

I have office via microsoft's home use program. So until that offers ipad versions I won't be able to get it. I'm not paying for a 365 subscription when I already have access to Office for windows mac.

Not for me. For what I do Pages vs Word is a wash. Keynote is in some ways better than PowerPoint. Excel is definitely better than Numbers and I truly miss it but not to the extent to buy it. I do prefer the customization of Office vs iWorks. It makes using Office a faster experience but the more I use the iWorks suite the less I miss Office. Microsoft waited too long to make Office available to iOS. Yes it has been available to the iPhone for a while but that was delayed too long to be really effective.

The issue for me is not whether the software is right for me or not. I refuse to be forced into a subscription service for software. If Office of the iPad ever is sold as a product whose use I am buying for as long as I can maintain my iPad, I probably would buy it.

But unless forced to do so by clients, I am unlikely to to pay fees to a company for temporary use of a product that may or may not be upgraded to my liking.

That option is unlikely to ever come. Office is becoming more a service and less a product, like all of Microsoft's businesses. Apple can probably undertake development of basic productivity needs, but Microsoft services/products like Office are used on a much higher scale. Keynote may make stunning slideshows, but Numbers doesn't compare to Excel; Like Windows Movie Maker doesn't compared Final Cut Pro, or probably even iMovie.

You subscribe to always have the latest version of Office not matter where you are, no matter what device, and with OneDrive, all your files. It's understandable not to want to be forced into a subscription, but they are trying to make it a value for you and the benefit to them is they will have less legacy software to support in the future since all the users will always have access to the latest version. In addition to providing them a consistent revenue stream from their consumers when Windows is no longer their cash cow.

My disagreement with your post is with your first sentence. Office itself is a suite of software programs. Nothing has changed.

What has changed is that Microsoft is no longer allowing its software to be purchased. If they get they're way, software will be rented and become an ongoing cash stream for them and an ongoing expense for its customers, regardless of the value in the future.

You clearly buy into their vision. I do not. I buy my cars, my computers, phones and software. However, if consumers are sort sighted enough to fall for the Microsoft model, buying software will become a thing of the past.

Do you pay for iTunes Match or any cloud space service? What happens if you stop paying for them? I dont think there's much difference. Office has moved (or is moving) away from its old tangible form, onto a service. That's how I see it anyway.

As a graduate student, I have been waiting on this for a long time. I downloaded it right when it became available. Guess what...it sucks. There are no office features that aren't available on Numbers, Keynotes, or Pages. I have an Office 365 subscription, so it didn't cost me anything. But don't waste your money. Features like building references and inputting footnotes and endnotes in APA or Turabian are not present along with a ton of other features. Maybe it will improve over time. But today, there is nothing to see here...move along, move along.

Already encountered a problem. The screen on both my IPhone and IPad are stuck on "Configuring Office" for the last 45 minutes. There is a circle going round and round on the top. Is that the way it installs??

I only did because I have 3 years and 11 months left on a student $80 deal for 365 deal for for years. We will see how good they are, I currently am all in on iWork and have been but love OneNote. Who knows, maybe this is (finally) Microsoft 2.0

NO. It isn't for me and probably most everyone else. To me it's an archaic solution to an archaic problem. It's not the 90s anymore and for most people using free Pages / Keynote / Numbers or even Google Docs, is plenty good for like 90% of people. For me the release of these apps is too little too late.

I probably won't unless my company moves to Office 365 (unlikely in the near future). While I don't do much creation on my iPad, if the Office 365/Microsoft Office subscription provides a better collaborative environment than what is commonly available, they may yet make a run at re-capturing some of their mobile mojo. (Google Docs seems to be the main competition for as much as I think the iWork apps are pretty slick, they really aren't meant to be used in a true cloud based collaborative environment.) I don't think the O365 subscription price (and by extension, Office for iPad) is really targeting the casual user, and Microsoft is probably not as concerned with those users as they once were, but for those with an existing qualifying O365 subscription, this may work out well for them.

I use Office at work and consider it a blight. I would use anything else if given a choice and find the iWork suite to be more than satisfactory but could be swayed to use a different iOS word processor.

Yes!!! MS Office owns the business world because it really is the cream of the crop. No other program comes close when it comes to power, flexibility, and configurability. And even if it wasn't, it is so widely used that you can't collaborate with other business users because they all use MS Office.

Not sure. I have the ability through work, and a Citrix account. I can use onenote with my old live account, but paying for a 365 subscription just to edit word, and excel, I can do that in documents to go. I bought MS Office 2010 for a PC. Seems like I could transfer that over, but guess not. It was the full office pro. The PC crashed, and I went MAcBook Pro.

We'll, I signed up for the free trial , and honestly I like it so far. I don't own a MAC (we just have the family PC) so iWork is a bit of a no go if I want it on full keyboard and desktop. At least until I decide wether or not to get a Mac or not (might just get a PC for gaming.)

After the free trial I'll probably pick up the office 365 personal edition there putting out for $69, since I don't need all that home premium offers.

Even if I do decide to get a Mac, it would more than likely be a macbook. In which I'll then have to decide wether it's worth keeping over just using iWork, but I hear office is still better than iWork .

Since I use Office for everything (work and home), I bit the bullet and purchased a subscription. While it is costly (though not a huge sum), I have to say - I love what Microsoft created. These apps are slick and function quite well from what I've seen so far. Sure, in a perfect world, I could use Pages and other free apps (CloudOn, etc.) to get my work done, but they don't offer the same fluidity that the authentic Office apps do. The fact remains, that if you're heavily invested in Office and use it on a daily basis (as I do), this is a no-brainier purchase. Pages is great, but despite file conversions, it still is an Apple product first and foremost. CloudOn and its brethren are closer to Office, but they still lack total Office integration, especially for business use. With 365 and the iPad apps, I can set up my OneDrive for Business account (along with my personal one), grade essays and access my teaching files on the go without lugging around my laptop, and make my iPad even more of a productivity tool. I totally understand those who don't want to pony up the money to subscribe, but I have a feeling that many who use Office religiously will buy 365. For 90 bucks, I'll bet on Office for a year. I railed against Microsoft for being stuck in reverse, but this shows they finally are listening to their public, and with the amount of capital they have, we know they will update their apps on a regular basis. Welcome back, Microsoft. Glad to finally see you on my iPad!

You are mistaken about my use of "more fluid" - I don't have to justify anything. And yes, it is subjective. Intensely? I don't think so. But really, so what? For me, the new apps are just that. I can grade and revise students' work (all Word documents), share the documents with them via 365 and their school accounts, and decrease the amount of uploading, downloading, and emailing back and forth. Listen, if my place of employment (my school) used iWork, and I had used iWork before being exposed to Office, I'd say the same thing about iWork. As it stands, I do use iWork for document creation, too, just not as much as I do Office.

What I find interesting is how many tech sites are absolutely gushing over Office for iOS (not so much this one), yet at the same time, the experience they describe in using it is sub-par at best. Pundits are saying it's "the best office suite available," yet telling us that it crashed several times while they were writing their review. Another says it's the "gold standard now" but they haven't actually tried it.

The bottom line is that it's a product that offers nothing more than what Apple already offers, for roughly roughly a hundred bucks a year, whereas the Apple stuff is all free. Apple's iWork suite also handles Word documents as well as it's own format, but Office for iOS only handles it's own formats.

I think it's a good product from what I've seen so far, but a lot of folks are going way to far overboard in their praise of it. There is just a huge amount of hype going on and way too many superlatives flying around about this product.

I love office on my PC. But through my company I got the suite for like $20. Even if u paid full price, it doesn't come to nearly as expensive as a yearly subscription to 365. Is microsoft crazy?!?! I can see companies paying that, but individual people. Crazy. Especially since apple is giving their suite away for free. I prefer office, but u can't beat free!!!! I would pay a reasonable one time price for office. That is realistic.